Biographie

After acting in Hôtel Rwanda (2004), a film about the early 1990s Rwandan genocide, he became an activist to raise awareness of the mid-2000s genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. In January 2005, he traveled to Sudan with five members of Congress to see refugee camps and to meet survivors of the genocide. Upon his return, he reported on his trip for ABC News Nightline (1979).

Plays the saxophone.

During the making of Mission to Mars (2000), he asked to sleep overnight on the film set so that he could stay in full character.

Briefly worked as a stand-up comic early in his career.

Appeared in Les rois de Las Vegas (1998) as Sammy Davis Jr., who along with the other Rat Pack members, appeared in the original L'inconnu de Las Vegas (1960). Cheadle then appeared in the remake, Ocean's Eleven (2001).

But I don't think it helps to be thought of as a scene-stealer. That's not comforting for the other actors. They think, 'Well, I don't want to work with him. Go steal from someone else.' So I'm never going into a movie thinking that I want to grab the attention. Quite the opposite: I give that stuff away, because I'm wanting to make the best whole piece. I want to look back at my resume and think, 'That was a great movie,' not, 'Oh, those four movies were shit, but I was good in them.' I want to be a part of great things.

I've been doing this since I was 10 years old, inhabiting different people and playing different roles. Thirty years later, there's still the same sort of excitement I get from it. It's still fun to inhabit different characters and play different things, so it's all in that panoply of acting.

I also believe that you are what you have to defend, and if you're a black man that's always going to be the bar against which you are judged, whether you want to align yourself with those themes or not. You can think of yourself as a colourless person, but nobody else is gonna.

In fifth grade I was Templeton the Rat in a production of 'Charlotte's Web'. I remember I had a friend who worked in a doughnut shop. I'd go in, get a doughnut and sit there with my script, going over the lines and making notes in the margin. I was serious!

(2008 quote) I'm very critical of myself. I've yet to see a great performance from this kid. No, it's not comfortable; I hate watching myself. You don't like when you hear your voice on your voicemail; imagine having to see yourself 30 feet wide and 30 feet big.